Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 3 preposterous order. Their cruelty was shown in their not resting satisfied but with the destruction of one who was a saint of God; he declares that he must even now perish unless God should help him speedily. The comparison is not merely to a dead man, but a putrid corpse; for by the dead of an age 691 are meant those who have been long removed from the world. Such language intimates that he not only trusted in God as he who could heal him of a deadly disease, but considered that though his life should be buried, as it were, and long out of mind, God could raise it again, and restore his very ashes.
Psalm 143:4-7
4. And my spirit is perplexed within me, my heart within me is astonished. 5. I remembered the days of old, I meditated upon all thy works; I meditated upon the work of thy hands. 6. I spread out my hands to thee, my soul is to thee as the earth without water. 692
Selah. 7. Hasten, answer me, O Jehovah! my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, because I shall be like to those descending into the pit.
4. And my spirit, etc. Hitherto he has spoken of the troubles that were without, now he acknowledges the feebleness of his spirits, from which it is evident that his strength, was not like that of the rock, imperturbable or without feeling, but that, while overwhelmed with grief as to the feeling of the flesh, he owed his support entirely to faith and the grace of the Spirit. We are taught by his example not to throw up the conflict in despair, however much we may be weakened, and even exanimated by afflictions, as God will enable us to surmount them, if we only rise to him with our hearts amidst all our anxieties.
In the next verse David mentions that he had diligently sought means whereby to mitigate his grief. It is not to be wondered at, that many.עולם כמתיThese words are differently rendered in the ancient versions. The Septuagint has ὡς νεκροὺς αἰωνος, as the dead of the age; the Syriac, forever; the Chaldee, as they that lie down of that age. The real sense of the expression is, as they who have been dead a long time. The Psalmist employs hyperbolical language in this verse; he says, the enemy hath beaten his life to the ground, hath made him dwell in dark places, and for such a length of time, that there remained no remembrance of him, and that he had become like those persons who had long since been in their graves. The design of all this is to express emphatically great sorrow and oppression." — Phillips.
In the Book of Common Prayer it is — "My soul gaspeth unto thee as a thirsty land." Mant translates similarly. The word gaspeth is a supplement, but it may convey the precise meaning; and according to this view the allusion is to the cracking of the lands of the east, in consequence of the extreme drought of the summer months. These dry lands, as has been noticed by travelers, have often chinks too deep for a person to see to the bottom of. This may be observed in the Indies more than anywhere, a little before the autumnal rains fall, and, wherever the lands are rich and hard. See Jeremiah 14:4.